SUMMARY: Well, we're back at it with another new name in the power supply market. Though these folks have been around for a while, they aren't a name that is always heard of when it comes to a PSU. Come join Mike "Darthtanion" Wright as he takes a look at the Allied 500 watt Power Supply. It boasts an abundance of power, and quiet, cool operation. We're going to stress it out a bit and see if it can live up to it's own claims!
When you first remove the power supply from the box, you will be greeted by an exterior that at first looks rather ordinary. The brushed aluminum finish is pretty standard, but should help in the cooling process due to its material. It has a fan on the bottom of the unit as well as an exhaust fan on the back of the box to make sure that everything inside stays as cool as possible. But the rear fan is a tri-color LED model fan that will also filter light through the clear blades of the lower fan. This can come in handy if you happen to be interested in lighting mods in your own system.
But wait, there are a couple of other things to point out.
First, the toggle switch for the power supply is lit when the unit is on, so it makes it easy to determine the proper direction for the switch. Also, there is a small rheostat beside the switch that handles the chore of fan speed adjustments. While the PCI and FDD slot type rheostats have become increasingly popular among enthusiasts, it is nice to have the ability to manually adjust fan speeds without having to string even more wires through an increasingly crowded case.
It is attention to details like this that can make a company stand out among their peers and competitors.
I generally don’t worry too much about taking a photograph of the manufacturer’s labels on a PSU, but I wanted to point out that this particular breed has a nice, thick one that is adhered to the side of this unit. Nice and thick. As a matter of fact, I had to remove it because it caused the power supply to be too large to fit into the PSU bay of my Lian-Li case. Whoops.
As far as cabling is concerned, you should have no real problems with quantity or type. You eight standard 4-pin Molex connectors, two FDD connectors, a 20-pin primary power connector, a 4-pin 12v additional power coupler, an auxiliary power connector and an adapter to convert from Molex to SATA. Also included is a 3-pin connector used to monitor fan speeds through a motherboard fan header.
The 20-pin power cable is covered with a mesh coating to make it easier to keep the mass of wires under control. Also wrapped in mesh are the 12v additional power coupler and the auxiliary power connector. While I don’t mind having the cables wrapped, it can become interesting when finding a place for the unused power cable. Modern motherboards generally use either one or the other of these supplemental power cables. This leaves the other one dangling in the area of the main power on the motherboard.
I usually keep any unused cabling wrapped up with a zip tie and mounted to an out of the way place in the case. Not only does this keep things nice and neat, but it also makes sure that the unnecessary cables don’t impede airflow within the enclosure. With the mesh wrapped around both of these power leads, I can’t tuck the unused connector out of the way. I don’t know about you, but I prefer not to have small things dangling inside the case.
The SATA power is done by means of a converter, but that shouldn’t be an issue. The converters have shown themselves to be very reliable, and besides, a lot of folks don’t have SATA drives. This allows the use of all of the Molex connectors in the event that one isn’t present in your own system. And if there happens to a Serial drive present, you’ll still have seven Molex connectors to use. This is still a very acceptable number of power leads.
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